


Crossing the Frame

by ablankshot



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 13, Season/Series 13 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6735259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ablankshot/pseuds/ablankshot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: Tucker trapped in deciding if he goes after Hargrove or finally lets himself rest?</p>
<p>He’s tired. Tucker is more tired than he can ever remember being in his life, not counting giving birth to Junior (and he definitely doesn’t want to think about Junior right now). Through the flecks of red on his cracked visor, he can make out the doorway blessedly empty for the first time since all this started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing the Frame

He’s tired. Tucker is more tired than he can ever remember being in his life, not counting giving birth to Junior (and he definitely doesn’t want to think about Junior right now). Through the flecks of red on his cracked visor, he can make out the doorway blessedly empty for the first time since all this started.

“It’s been a long ass day, and it’s almost over,” he mutters. To himself, mostly, because now he has to actually move and walk all the damn way through the room they all just fought and killed in to get to the hallway to get to the _bridge_ to meet Wash because Wash just managed to radio in and say he was bringing back up. The thought makes him snort, “Too late for that one.”

He picks his way through the bodies, doesn’t look at them, doesn’t want to see all the death around him, and finally breathes once he’s out of the stale, bloody air. It doesn’t relieve the pounding _ba-dump ba-bump_ aching in the back of his head, but it helps his lungs at least. He takes one last inventory check for himself, as long as he has his sword and a gun, he’s fine. Captain Lavernius Tucker is _fine_ if anyone had to ask because he will make it through this ship and fucking kill that old white dude if it’s the last thing he ever does. Which at this point could be a very real outcome.

But as he looks down the corridor and ignores the vast canyon of silence in his head that stretches on for years, he wonders if he should. Should he even bother going to look for Hargrove now, or stand down. Lay low and recover and come up with some new plan with the others. There wouldn’t be much of a plan at this point, not with their numbers (their numbers are laughable now, a joke, a sad sob story as a post-it note on the UNSC’s footnote of a report no one would read probably). What would Tucker even do if he found Hargrove? Was Hargrove even trained to fight? Surely not, with how many times the guy keeps retreating out of battle range himself - he’s like Doyle in that regard, but so unlike Doyle in so many other ways it’s almost insulting to compare the two.

– _It was actually Doyle who_ –

Fuck, don’t think about Doyle either. Tucker’s breath hitches and he leans against a wall to try and even it out. In and out. Breathe. Close his eyes and focus on breathing. He still can’t figure out what happened right at the start of the battle that caused everything to go so wrong so immediately and uncontrollably. He never wanted this. He never wanted to hear the things he heard (Donut crying out in pain, Simmons' agonizing scream over the sound of gunshots), see what he had to see (Caboose shot down and finally taken out with a grenade, Sarge standing in a puddle of his own blood refusing to stop shooting the enemy). He never wanted to be the one that survived, _again_ , and have to tell someone what happened. Tucker doesn't want to have to think about what noise Wash's voice will make when he tells him everything, or about that quiet, defiant anger of Carolina's when he has to tell her Epsilon is gone and he doesn't know how or why but he knows whatever happened to Church did something to his head and he can't breathe, he ca _n't breathe_ \--

He starts to reach for the release catches on the helmet, instinctively reaches for the back and doesn’t find them. Too many years with his MJOLNIR armor, not enough time getting accustomed to the EVA helmet. He scrabbles blindly, breathless and gasping, letting his hands fall back to his side and he moves on.

Tucker could let him go. He could just let Hargrove walk for now. The anger and hurt and thirst for revenge was so strong and overpowering when he looked around the room and saw the results of the fight. But now it’s mingling and mixing with exhaustion, sadness, loss. All Tucker really wants to do is sit his ass on the floor of this dick’s spaceship and sleep. Sleep and not dream of a damn thing because he’s too tired to dream now and he can’t get his head to stop pounding for five fu _cking seconds_ to hear someone radioing in asking for his coordinates or location or what-the-fuck-ever on the ship.

He glances at his HUD’s map to get the numbers because he doesn’t even feel like describing how to get where he is, the weird circuitous route FILSS led them on and notices the files. A blinking light in the corner of what’s left of his visor that there are files in the data storage and he can only make out bits and pieces through the cracks, but he lets out a sort of strangled noise in his throat when he sees they’re video files, named for each of the team.

He knows where they came from.

He knows they’ll never get to see them.

It’s been a long ass day for Tucker, watching his friends die all around him and inside his head. And all he wants to do is sleep or kill this motherfucker and he realizes maybe he isn’t in the best shape to make that decision himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much [goodluckdetective](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective) for indulging me and letting me write Tucker pain with this prompt! Added a few extra things to this version that weren't in the tumblr version.


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